The present invention relates to an electronic mailing system and more particularly to the electronic mailing system which has a function of notifying a destination terminal of a fact that an electronic mail reaches a host computer.
The electronic mailing system includes a plurality of terminals which are connected to a host computer through a public telephone network or a local area network (LAN). When any connected terminal sends to the host computer an electronic mail having another terminal specified as its destination, the host computer stores the electronic mail in its own mail box. When a subscriber in the electronic mailing system has access to the host computer, the host computer sends to the subscriber's terminal a message indicating that the electronic mail is stored. In response to the message, the subscriber terminal can receive the electronic mail along a predetermined procedure.
Such an electronic mailing system has been disclosed in "Hitachi Software Engineering Ltd., ed., SK-BBS2 Manuals No.C0848-004-01, published in July, 1989", for example.
The conventional electronic mailing system is designed so that a user or subscriber on a destination terminal may not know if an electronic mail is sent to the terminal itself until the user on the destination terminal has access to the host computer. Hence, a disadvantage may take place that the terminal cannot receive the electronic mail at a proper time. To avoid the disadvantageous situation, a user on a terminal is required to periodically have access to the host computer or a user on a sending terminal has to phone to a user on a destination terminal for notifying of sending of an electronic mail or making sure that the mail is received. Such troublesome and intricated procedure becomes necessary to sending or receiving an electronic mail. This is another disadvantage.
To overcome these disadvantages, the following two proposals have been made.
One proposal is JP-A-62-268253, which discloses a system for notifying of the receipt of an electronic mail. In this system, the electronic mailing module, that is, the host computer includes a memory having a function of displaying an electronic mail left therein. The host computer automatically retrieves the memory for a certain amount of time and notifies the destination terminal of the mail being left therein. The other proposal is JP-A-2-311047, which discloses a mailing system between the facsimile international standardization G4 terminals. This system is based on a message handling system (MHS) routine. In the mailing system, a sending terminal sends to the host computer a control document accompanied with receiver-identifying information and the host computer notifies the receiving terminal of the receipt of the electronic mail by referring to the receiver-identifying information. This notification is effected through a public phone by a computer voice. Both of the prior art systems do not allow a sending terminal to selectively specify a mail-receive noticing method such as an urgency level or a receipt time and send the specified terminal to a receiving terminal. The former proposal of JP-A-62-268253 provides only a means for notifying a receiving terminal of the fact that an electronic mail reaches the host computer. Hence, the user has no means to make sure of how important the content of the mail is and how urgently it is noticed except checking the content of the mail box. The latter proposal of JP-A-2-311047 provides a mail-received location uniquely defined as a facsimile. It means that the message-received location is uniquely defined as a telephone. Hence, no user can know the receipt of the mail on his terminal.